A Mountain and a Day's Travel Away
by Sugarstars and Ice
Summary: Fidget reflects on her adventure with Dust so far in the darkness of the frigid night. Drabble-type one-shot thing. Minor mentions of blood.


_**hey, where's all the fanfics from this fandom? i decided to contribute something after playing this game four times in a row over the span of a week~**_

 _ **Dust: An Elysian Tail and its characters do not belong to me!**_

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The blood had stopped scoring a trail behind them for some time, but he still looked greatly pained, and greatly determined to keep walking. Night was falling, and frigid biting winds were starting to blow, laced with snowflakes that twirled in the dusk. The mountains before them rose into white-capped peaks obscured by the gathering night, and by the looks of it would take at least another full day to navigate. As they reached the base, the nimbat waited for them to settle down and camp out for the night, but frowned with dismay as her companion seemed to want to continue up the mountain, despite the time. She knew the reason behind his urgency to push onward, but it nevertheless was still an awful idea. Even if it weren't late in the day, it was still probably rash to try and navigate a vast and snowy mountain directly after doing battle with a number of vicious undead creatures and a demon of all things. Besides, Fidget was hungry.

"Dust, we should stop here for the night…" the nimbat muttered, fluttering to hover right next to the fox's head in an attempt to gain his attention which had been fixed stoically at the icy peaks, "I mean, seriously, it's nighttime."

"Correction, it's dusk." Dust answered dryly without breaking his limp-gaited stride. He'd fallen a bit awkwardly from a drop trying to dodge an exploding zombie earlier and most likely twisted an ankle. His fur along his face and arms were a bit singed from said exploding zombie as well, among other things. Fidget pouted, fluttering ahead of him and hovering in place in his way,

"C'mon Dust, how're we supposed to climb a mountain in the dark?! We won't be able to see where we're putting our feet!" she insisted. Dust sidestepped around her,

"You mean _I_ won't be able to see? You can fly. Also, I thought you weren't scared of the dark." He remarked, a faint smile touching his face.

Fidget scowled, "I am not scared of the dark! I'm _scared_ of stumbling off a cliff because _someone_ doesn't want to wait out the night like a smart person!" her expression softened for a moment as she darted in front of Dust again, "Please Dust? Can't we just settle down here for the night? I know you wanna hurry to meet Ginger in the mountains but it's dark and cold and you're still beat up from fighting the undead...and most importantly, _I'm starving_." she puffed, throwing her small arms up at the last statement.

"Master, I agree that it would be unwise to try and traverse the mountains at this time, and in your current state. Perhaps we should stop for the night." The voice sounded from the Blade of Ahrah, in Dust's grip. Dust paused in place upon hearing it speak.

Fidget huffed, "Oh now you pipe up...anyways, pretty please Dust?"

Dust sighed, a plume of icy breath escaping into the air, "Fine, you win." he muttered, trying not to scowl at Fidget's look of smug triumph. Within a few minutes, they had lit a campfire with Fidget's projectiles and were huddled around it. The night was quiet save for the sound of cold wind whistling over iced-over rocks and frozen pine tree needles, and Fidget gleefully nibbling away at a roasted marshmallow impaled on a stick. Away from any source of light, and with snowstorm clouds blocking the moon and stars, the night was a murky blackness that swallowed the mountains and rendered them little more than a dark outline in the distance. Indeed, it would have been near-impossible to try and scale the snowy cliffs in this darkness.

Fidget finished off her last marshmallow and yawned, scooting closer to the fire and rubbing her tiny paws together. It wasn't someplace she especially would have liked to spend the night, but there wasn't much choice nearby between a frigid wasteland and a zombie-ridden meadow that could be considered more comfortable.

The nimbat would have preferred her den back in the forest to most of the places they had taken respite, including glens swarmed with monsters and dark underground caverns, though there wasn't much that could be done about the matter. The reason she even agreed to come to such places was because of her need to regain the Blade of Ahrah and return it to her clan when Dust was through with using it, though with each new event, it was becoming more and more uncertain when that would be, and if she even should be primarily concerned with that anymore. It couldn't have been too long since she had first seen the sword float up and go flying out of nimbat territory, but it felt like ages had passed.

Fidget looked up at Dust, who had taken to relaxing with his back braced against a boulder. He'd been still and silent for some time, and Fidget wondered if he'd fallen asleep already. Despite how determined he seemed to be to keep traversing up the Blackmoor Mountains, there was no doubt he was exhausted after hacking through hordes of undead in the Sorrowing Meadows all day. And especially cutting through their numbers after their battle with Baron Kane's demon, the pale blue fox was looking a bit worse for wear. Aside from the singe and scorch marks on his arms and face from exploding zombies, he also bore a bloody shoulder from awfully huge stinging spikes after agitating a hive one too many times. There was also another large gash that spanned down his other forearm from trying to block an attack from one of those knife-handed monsters that were occasionally found stalking the meadows, but it had been bound and had stopped bleeding after some time earlier.

The claw marks from the demon on Dust's left leg was the most worrying, however, as it had been bleeding everywhere from nonstop walking and running and dodging through the meadows and had only just recently stopped bleeding. Between that and his twisted right ankle, Fidget wondered how he possibly could keep walking, much less think he could scale a mountain in the dark.

She recalled his tendency to shrug off such things like injuries and ailments and insist he could walk it off or wait it out without treatment, as he had tried to do the first time a bubble sprout showered poison on him while they were underground. The nimbat huffed at the memory. Dust probably thought he was being tough when in reality he wasn't thinking things through. Nevertheless, her companion seemed to seldom choose to worry about himself, if it didn't relate to his forgotten identity and fractured past.

Fidget could understand his urgency now, of all times. They had to meet with Ginger and find the last Moonblood encampment, and it had been revealed to him that he had, in fact, twin souls. Whatever that meant. It felt like the answers were near, only a mountain and a day's travel away, with only the lack of daylight and proper health getting in the way.

Fidget prodded the firewood with the stick she had used to roast marshmallows on before tossing into the fire, which had started to get low. Despite the fact they had picked a mostly sheltered area in the lee of the nearby rocks and boulders, it was still quite freezing out here. The stick did little to feed the fire, but it at least continued to cast its warmth around them. Fidget shivered and edged closer to Dust's sleeping form, picking up the end of his cape and wrapping it around her tiny body for at least a small bit of extra warmth.

Would they find the Moonbloods tomorrow after all? Would they find out more information about Dust's lost memories? Fidget was somewhat surprised at how invested she had gotten in Dust's adventure to rediscover his past, at least for the sake of him knowing it. He often worried these days over what Fuse had said, quite a while ago, and his dying revelation that Dust had been once affiliated with General Gaius and his genocidal campaign. He couldn't remember it, but he still worried about it despite Fidget insisting it didn't matter anymore, now that he was practically a different person now.

Dust twitched in his sleep, and shifted his legs. Fidget wondering if he was dreaming about it now.

The nimbat yawned and curled up on her side, still wrapped up in the end of the cape. The biggest clue to Dust's past was that he had been a force of evil, but in all the time Fidget spent by his side, she couldn't pinpoint any of that detail in him. Most of their time together had been spent saving Aurora and Mudpot village alike, among other smaller tasks, and there hadn't been a moment of doubt throughout the entire adventure.

Unless she counted the time they spent hacking through monsters in their territory.

The nimbat could just pass it off as something normal, due to the fact that travelling through monster territories between villages meant it was a matter of kill or be killed, but it seemed like something more. The coldly anticipating demeanor, the darkly enthused atmosphere he gained every time a group of monsters was scattered dead across the path. The faint insinuation of bloodthirst as Dust leapt at baying monsters and felled each one within mere seconds with deadly precision…almost like he enjoyed killing vast numbers of monsters in the heat of battle. However, any trace of it seemed to evaporate as soon as they left the monsters' territory, and once they had reached civilization. Faint bloodlust faded away and Dust returned to his normal, reserved self. Fidget supposed there was nothing to really be concerned about in that case. Even if a bit standoffish at times, Dust did genuinely seem to like taking time to help out with people's problems, even if it stalled his ultimate mission to regain his memories.

It was strange how contrasting he could be sometimes, in different places and situations, but most of what stood out and the only thing that really seemed to matter was his willingness to save an entire village he was barely acquainted with, just for the reason that it was the right thing to do.

Fidget shut her eyes, drowsiness coming quick to her consciousness.

All in all, helping Dust do all these things wasn't so bad, even if she had been silently pining to return home and to a normal state for some time after they'd first met. She sensed he was most likely grateful for her assistance as well, despite her tendency to be a bit on the talkative side. As strange as the blue fox was, and as mysterious and shifty as his past seemed to be, Fidget thought there couldn't be much harm in lending her help to someone who had gone out of his way to save two villages in such a short span of time.

Even if he supposedly had been a bad person in the past.

Well, no one truly evil would do what he'd done, right?

Everything will probably be sorted out in time. It was Fidget's last thought before she fell asleep for the night.


End file.
